The invention relates generally to machines or mechanisms for knotting the free ends of a coil spring to the adjacent end convolution of the coil spring.
In prior machines, the knot-tying operation of the machine was powered and driven through a single camshaft assembly which was cyclically operated by a one revolution mechanical clutch which was spring biased, and pneumatically operated, and excessively noisy.
Furthermore, the knot-tying or twisting member (to be described hereinafter) was driven from the camshaft by a partial gear, i.e., a gear which had only a limited arcuate range of teeth, which partial gear was removably fixed on the camshaft for periodic driving actuation of the knot-tying or twisting member.
As a consequence, when it was desired to change the size of the knot, i.e., to vary the number of turns therein, it was necessary to at least partially disassemble the camshaft assembly to permit removal of one partial gear and then to reassemble the camshaft assembly with another partial gear.
Such disassembly and reassembly resulted in appreciable machine down time and was also labor intensive. Thus, it was expensive to disassemble and reassemble the camshaft assembly to vary the number of turns in the knot.